


good is better than perfect

by starlight_sugar



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: 5 Times, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11060184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: Five times Rita didn't meet Peter Nureyev, and one time she did.





	good is better than perfect

**Author's Note:**

> **disclaimer:** this fic and i are in no way affiliated with the penumbra podcast cast or crew  
>  **content warnings:** canon-typical alcohol use and gun violence, kidnapping, vaguely implied torture - there are more detailed (albeit spoilery) descriptions in the end note  
>  **canon notes:** technically canon up through Lesson Learned  
>  title is from [man of a thousand faces](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80U5YdGrt9g) by regina spektor

The thing is, there are expectations that come with being a private eye’s secretary, all sorts of things that people expect you to be able to do or know at the drop of a hat. Rita’s not good at most of those things. She’s really good at the ones she’s good at, like the note-taking and the people-watching and the pattern-finding, but it took her a long time to figure out that there were things that she was bad at too. A lot of people expect secretaries to be organized and all prim and proper and probably not watching streams while they work (not that Mister Steel really cares, no matter how much he pretends to) and Rita isn’t… well, Rita isn’t any of that.

The other side of that, though, is that when people try to figure her out they do it wrong, and that’s what Mister Steel calls an asset. That’s what Rita calls annoying, but she has to admit, it’s always fun to see the look on a sucker’s face when they realize they’re a sucker. So maybe she plays up the parts that she figures people underestimate, so what? It’s their own stinkin’ fault if they think she’s dumb, or that Mister Steel would hire a dumb secretary. And there’s a time and a place to be dumb on purpose, anyways, and that’s not all the time, even though the place normally is always at work.

So the point of all this is: when the doors slide open and that Dark Matters agent from a couple months back walks in smug as ever, Rita doesn’t bother with the simpering or looking all moony. She taps her pen against her mouth and turns her eyes up to him. “The boss isn’t in right now, so if you’re looking for him you’d better come back some other time.”

Agent Glass falters, just enough that Rita can see it. Good. “I suppose that’s the risk of stopping by unannounced,” he says. He sounds not quite confused, the way most people are, maybe a little curious, like he wants to know what’s going on.

“Guess that’s the risk of leaving my boss all alone after facing down the Kanagawas, Agent Glass,” Rita answers - snaps, a little bit, but come on, could anyone blame her when Mister Steel had moped around so much after that case? - and settles back in her chair.

Agent Glass looks even more thrown off. “I didn’t think you’d remember my name,” he says, a little more halting this time.

Rita cocks her head. “Well, then, that’s on you, ain’t it?”

“It is, yes.” He takes a step forward, and Rita nearly scoots her chair back a couple inches, just in case. “It seems I’ve underestimated you, Rita. My apologies.”

Rita flaps a hand in the air. “You’re not the only one, Agent Glass, and you’re not gonna be the last one either.”

“And that’s the way you’d like it,” Agent Glass guesses. His mouth is curling up into a smile. Rita likes it, it makes him look more like a real person. “I don’t know why I expected any less.”

Rita doesn’t want the guy to beat himself up over it - at least, not too much - so she decides she might as well stroke his ego now, make it a little better. “Aw, Agent Glass, everyone expects less of me. I bet you didn’t think I’d figure out that you’re not a real Dark Matters agent either, but nobody ever thinks I notice things, and they’re right a lot of the time but they’re wrong a lot of the-”

“You could tell that I’m not a real agent?” Agent Glass says. He looks thunderstruck, like he still hadn’t quite put it together that Rita’s smart when she wants to be.

She blinks at him. “Well, yeah, look at you. Isn’t it obvious?”

Agent Glass stares for another second and shakes his head. “Where on earth did Juno find you?”

“Not on Earth, on Mars,” Rita says exasperatedly. “Honestly, Agent Glass - or maybe it’s Mister Glass, if you’re not really an agent, but I don’t know how that all works - you’d think you’d remember what planet you’re on, what with you not being from it. And anyways, Mister Steel is out on a case, and he tells the story about how we met better than I do, so you’ll just have to ask him when he gets back.”

Mister-Agent Glass gives her the driest little smile she’s ever seen. “I have a hard time believing Juno could tell any story better than you, Rita,” he says, like it’s some kind of conspiracy.

Rita narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to butter me up?”

Mister-Agent Glass holds his hands up in the universal gesture of don’t-shoot, I-come-in-peace. “Not at all. And I unfortunately don’t have the time to stay until Juno returns, I just found myself in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop in.”

“Mmmm-hm.” Rita bares her teeth again and taps her pen against it once, twice. “And why are you popping in? Don’t you got plenty of other places to pop?”

“Of course I do,” Mister-Agent Glass says, just patronizing enough that Rita narrows her eyes at him. He folds his hands behind his back. “But since I’m here, and it’d be a shame not to ask - how is our Detective Steel? I haven’t had the chance to check up on him since we - how did you put it? - faced down the Kanagawas.”

Rita throws an arm up in exasperation. “It’s about time you came and asked that, it’s been months, I was beginning to think Mister Steel was so mopey because you died or somethin’.”

“Mopey? Was he moping?”

“Yeah, a couple months back. These days the boss is as fine as ever.” Rita tilts her head at him. “But I’m guessing you don’t want him to know that you know that, because if he knew that you knew then he’d know you’re here, and you’re not the kinda guy who would show up on accident when the person you wanted to see wasn’t there to get seen.”

Mister-Agent Glass blinks at her. “Could you… run that by me one more time?”

Rita sighs. “You knew he wasn’t going to be here,” she says patiently. “And you want me to keep Mister Steel from knowing that you knew that, or that you were here at all. But he’s doing as fine as ever, and if that’s all you came to find out then you can leave, right?”

“I could,” Mister-Agent Glass agrees, and tips his hat, not as deep of a tip as Rita would like but she figures she has to take what she can get with this guy. “Miss Rita, it’s been more of a pleasure than I expected.”

“And you’ve been less of one,” Rita retorts, and Mister-Agent Glass gives her what might be the realest smile he’s smiled since he walked into her office. “Till next time, Mister-Agent Glass, or whatever your name is.”

“I like the sound of Mister-Agent Glass,” Mister-Agent Glass says agreeably. “Until next time, Rita.”

Rita waits till he walks out and the doors close behind him, and then another three seconds for good measure, before she sighs as loudly as she can manage. “What an idiot,” she says to the rest of the empty office, and even though the office doesn’t answer she’s pretty sure it understands her. After all, the office is probably the only person, place, or thing that sees Mister Steel more than Rita does, and it knows as well as she does that saying that he’s “as fine as ever” isn’t the same thing as saying he’s okay.

But Mister-Agent Glass is gone, and Rita thinks she’d be more surprised if she sees him again than if she didn’t, so she turns back to her stream and waits for Mister Steel to call. (Mister Steel would never believe it, but she actually does wait for him, with mansion maps ready to be traced and a whole galactic-wide web ready to be hacked. Or maybe he would believe it. Mister Steel might be the only person who never took Rita at face value.)

 

#

 

The improv classes are Mister Steel’s idea. Or, well, they’re kind of a joke that he makes, after she nearly botches that case pretending to be a detective - “if you’re going to pretend to be me, at least learn to act,” he says, and Rita figures, she might as well learn to act anyways. She’s been doing it so long, it’d have to be fun to find out if she’s actually any good at it.

She’s on her way home from an improv class, one all about starting every line with “yes, and” (a little limited for Rita’s taste, but hey, she’s a student, not a teacher) when she passes by the QuikStop near her apartment and remembers she’s out of shampoo.

“Do you need shampoo? Yes,  _ and _ I’ll go buy some,” she mutters to herself as she walks in the door, feeling pleased. It might not be what the teachers meant in improv class, but she’s still improvising, right? Improvising her way through the front door and into the shampoo aisle, and she figures she might as well improvise her way into a bottle of champagne when she gets to the liquor aisle and stops dead in her tracks.

Mister-Agent Glass doesn’t seem to notice her, which is almost as surprising as him being there, in the QuikStop near Rita’s apartment, looking not-freshly-shaved and not-smooth, and looking at the bottles of hard liquor like they’re going to either eat him alive or stop the eating, and he’s not sure which one he wants to happen more.

Rita drops her shampoo and points at him. “You!” she shrieks.

Mister-Agent Glass jumps and spins to face her, eyes wild. It takes him a moment to focus on her, but as soon as he does, he almost leaps towards her, arms wide open. “Miss Rita, oh, Miss  _ Rita! _ ”

Rita’s not sure why she doesn’t step away. It might be because Mister-Agent Glass looks like he could use a real good hug, and lucky for him, Rita’s a real good hugger. So she lets him sweep her into his arms and squeezes back in return, feeling a little lost, but he at least seems to relax a little bit.

“My name,” he whispers, mouth directly next to Rita’s ear, “is Duke Rose, for the moment, and I’d appreciate it if nobody heard any differently.”

“I don’t know anything about Duke Rose,” Rita whispers back, panic rising. “What am I supposed to say?”

“You’ll just have to improvise,” Mister Rose says, and steps back.

Rita gasps.  _ Improvise. _ She knows how to do that!

“What’re you doing on my side of town, Mister Rose?” she asks, because that bit is easy to improvise, what with it being an actual question she has.

Mister Rose smiles, a little bitterly. “Trying to avoid your boss,” he says, and Rita frowns at him. “I suspect my ex-wife is still at work.”

Rita’s eyes widen. Ex- _ wife? _ That’s gotta be Mister Steel, but if it is - boy, he sure didn’t tell her anything about getting married, especially not to any Mister Rose, but then again he hasn’t said much since… well.

“He’s been at work a lot more since the, uh, the eye surgery,” Rita says, and Mister Rose grimaces just enough that she can tell that it really is Mister Steel. Gosh, she’s going to have to ask why come she didn’t get to go to the wedding, or maybe not, since Mister Steel probably won’t be too happy that she ran into Mister Rose. “I think it was real hard on him, you know?”

“Yes, well, it was… a trying time for the both of us.” Mister Rose’s shoulders slump, and he looks back at the liquor. Rita peers at it, trying to guess which bottle Mister Rose is looking at. He seems like a flavored liquor type, something sweet. “I haven’t seen him since then.”

Rita folds her arms. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have left him,” she says, because he  _ shouldn’t _ have.

Except maybe she shouldn’t have said that, because she can feel the moment Mister Rose decides to freeze her out, going all cold and steely and setting his jaw like it’d hurt to loosen it. “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed,” he says, voice all strained like how the movie heroes sound when they’re trying to act all tough. “He left me.”

Yeah, Rita should’ve guessed that. It sounds like Mister Steel.

“Oh,” she says, trying to keep her guilt tamped down. “I didn’t know.”

Mister Rose sighs, and all the solidness seems to go out of him. “No, he wouldn’t have told you,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s talking to Rita. “Of course not.”

“I’m sorry,” Rita says timidly. She doesn’t do timid much, but Mister Rose looks like he’d break if she weren’t timid with him right now.

He gives her a tired smile. It doesn’t look real at all. “It’s not your fault, Rita, darling. I’m afraid I must be on my way.”

Rita nods and bends down to pick up the tampons off the ground. “It was real good seeing you, Mister Rose,” she offers. She’s not sure how true it is, but it’s only polite to do.

Mister Rose doesn’t seem to know how true it is either, but he nods at her anyways. “You too. Take care of him for me?”

“Course I will,” Rita scoffs. “Not like Mister Rose to take care of himself, anyways.”

“No,” Mister Rose agrees. He looks at the liquor one last time and starts down the aisle without grabbing a bottle. Rita doesn’t know if she should be glad about that or not, but since she’s here, she grabs the first thing she sees with the word “cherry” on the label. She she has a lot to think about and a lot to worry about, and besides, she’s improvising.

 

#

 

The Lysithea prison colony is almost impossible to get out of. Legend has it that only one person’s ever managed it, and nobody really knows who they were or how they did it, not anymore. They keep things locked down tight there. It’s the solar system’s overflow jail, where they stick everyone that they can’t stick anywhere else. Mister Steel hates it, complains about it all the time. Something about it being a human rights violation to stick anyone on that damn rock, although Rita can’t keep up with all that.

All she knows is it’s far away, near Jupiter, and that Mister Steel is trying to break in. Or, well, he’s trying to break a guy named Mister Bruzzone out for a case, or maybe for a favor for Cass Kanagawa, Rita can’t keep track anymore and Mister Steel is telling her less and less besides. But he does tell her she’s going to have to be his eyes and ears in Lysithea.

Lucky for him, there are cameras and blueprints everywhere, so Rita can be both eyes and ears. “Alright, boss, you’re gonna turn left here.”

“Are you sure?”

Rita lifts her hands for the fourth time to do the L trick, because you can’t ever be too sure, especially not on Lysithea. “I’m sure! Right is the 48 block, and that’s too far. You just gotta get through that door on the left.”

“I can get through that door,” Mister Steel says, like he doesn’t know perfectly well that Rita could get through that door for him. “How’s our distraction coming?”

“I’m still working on it,” Rita says, and spins back to the cameras in the K-47 block. Mister Bruzzone is in cell K-47-IBG, and Rita needs to come up with  _ something _ in the K-47-I’s that’ll cause a big enough ruckus, but the place is so boring. It’s all financial criminals, low-level ones, people who set up pyramid schemes that fell flat or got caught selling something illegal or, in the case of Mister Bruzzone, skipped out on paying taxes. They’re not exactly a ruckus-y crowd.

“Work faster,” Mister Steel says, like he does every time Rita isn’t ready to swoop in and save him at the drop of a hat, but really, boss, she’s working on the fly here too. Rita rolls her eyes and opens up the prisoner log again, scrolling through the faces. There are couple hundred people in the cell block, so one of them has to be-

-wait, that’s--

Rita clicks on the picture. The name is Arthur Mneston and he’s a suspected criminal fence, and he’s smiling in his picture, and it’s just as fake as Mister Rose and Mister-Agent Glass’s smiles were: almost real enough that you don’t have to think twice about it. Whoever Mister Mneston is, he’s in that cell block barely a dozen doors down from Mister Bruzzone, and if experience says anything it says that she can’t let Mister Steel see him. Things don’t tend to go well when those two run into one another.

“Boss,” she says, mind racing, “y’know how we were trying to figure out avoiding a manhunt for one guy? What if they can’t figure out what guy it is?”

“You’re gonna have to explain that one, Rita,” Mister Steel says, sounding winded, like he’s running down a hall. He probably is.

Rita starts typing. She can find Mister Mneston’s cell on the camera feeds, make sure he’s in there and that nothing goes wrong. “What if we let go a dozen guys? They won’t know which one we were aiming for, and cause a little chaos besides. I got all their profiles here, I can pick a good group.”

“Can you do it fast?”

“I can even get on the intercom, let them know we’re coming.” Rita pulls up the camera feed and Mister Mneston is there, sitting on the cell in his bed, watching a stream and somehow looking even more tired than Mister Rose had looked. “I can pull the locks on twenty-some cells right now, just say the word, boss.”

“You’re sure it’ll work?”

Rita chuckles. “Aw, Mister Steel, we’re never sure any of this is going to work, but we can always try it anyways.”

“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Mister Steel mutters. She can picture him smiling at that, no matter how hard he tries to stop himself from smiling. “Unlock the doors as soon as I’m in front of Bruzzone’s cell.”

“Got it, boss.” Rita hits a few keys and decides that oh, what the hell, she’s earned something nice. “I’m still gonna get in the intercoms, though.”

“Fine,” Mister Steel sighs. He’s still maybe ten cells away from Mister Bruzzone, so Rita has to move quick, tapping keys and finding weaknesses and hel- _ lo _ there, intercom system!

Rita leans in towards her computer. “Hey, is this thing on?”

“It’s on, Rita,” Mister Steel says into the intercom, but Rita’s barely listening, because one Mister Mneston just nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice. He seems surprised to hear from her. Rita doesn’t blame him, it’s probably a hell of a shock to have your ex’s (maybe-ex’s, she’s still not sure how that all shook out and it’s still barely her business, but at least ex-business-partner’s) secretary’s voice beaming down out of a prison intercom. In  _ Lysithea. _ Gosh, Rita’s hacking Lysithea, isn’t she? Most people couldn’t do that. Mister Steel is so lucky to have her.

“All right, if it’s on, let’s see…” Rita isolates the cell block that she needs on her screen. “Attention, everyone! If your cell number begins with K-47-IB, this is your lucky day. Doors are gonna spring open in about a minute, so grab anything you’re gonna need and head for the exits. We don’t have a way for you to get off the moon, so you’re gonna have to work together - you know, if you’ve ever seen  _ The Larissa Redemption, _ but only the remake, but only the first one, that sequel was just awful, you all know what I-”

“Rita,” Mister Steel says, as full of fake patience as he can probably manage. She glances at the monitor and sees him about to skid to a halt in front of Mister Bruzzone’s cell.

Rita clears her throat. “Right! Anyways, if you wanna get off here, you’re gonna have to do it together. It looks like your best chances for leaders are the Misters Mneston and Vidakovic, so try listening to them, except for you- you know who you are by now, right?”

“He knows, Rita, open the doors,” Mister Steel says.

“And doors are opening in three, two-” Rita hits a key with all the drama she can muster, and twenty-six doors open up. “C’mon, you money criminals, go and get outta here!”

When she looks at the feed, she sees two things, the only two things that matter. First, she sees Mister Steel grabbing a guy by the elbow and running, sprinting back the way he came from - she’s going to have to make sure Mister Steel keeps up with his cardio, with all the running he’s been doing lately. And second, she sees Mister Mneston look up at the camera in his cell, eyes shining, and mouth the words “thank you” directly at it. At her.

Rita beams.

 

#

 

The terraformed beaches on Venus are one of Rita’s favorite spots in the solar system - one of the only places she’s ever been off Mars, sure, but they’re just  _ beautiful, _ sparkling oceans and green sand and a real nice feeling that she could be there forever and never get tired of it. Rita doesn’t take vacations often, which is a side effect of Mister Steel also not taking vacations often and her not trusting him to take care of himself without her there, but sometimes a lady needs a break. And she has definitely definitely earned this break.

She’s lying on a chair on the beach, thinking idly about green sand and which soap operas have had episodes here (not enough, in Rita’s opinion) when someone settles into the chair next to hers, and there’s a clink of a glass settling on the table between them.

“The beach ain’t big enough for you to get your own chair?” Rita asks, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Her new beach-buddy laughs. “And of all the beaches on all the planets, I walked into yours,” he says, and it’s all Rita can do not to sigh out loud.

Then again, he wouldn’t blame her if she did, so she sighs as loud as she can and turns to look at him. “That drink had better be for me, Mister…”

He flashes her a smile, a real sharky smile, the kind that makes her want to scoot her chair away from his. “Springer. And of course it’s for you, Rita dear, I owe you a good many drinks after what you did for me on Lysithea.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short, Mister Springer, I’m sure you would’ve gotten out of there eventually.” Rita picks up her drink. “What is this, anyways?”

“Mai Tai. It’s an Earth classic, although I’ve always preferred appletinis.” Mister Springer gestures at her. “Go on, drink up, I paid good credits for that.”

“You want something,” Rita says suspiciously.

Mister Springer smiles that sharky smile again. “I would be terribly obliged, if you weren’t busy.”

Rita takes a long, long drink of the Mai Tai and wonders if normal secretaries get harangued like this on their first vacations in years. “You know, I have a date tonight.”

“Mazel tov,” Mister Springer says.

“I don’t go on dates very often, kind of a side effect of the job, but I met a nice girl here. She works for a shoe store in New Topeka, and she’s real cute, and I don’t want to be late when I take her out for dinner.” Rita swirls her Mai Tai in her glass. “So this’d better not take long.”

“Oh, certainly not! I could just use your skills.”

“I get the feeling you don’t mean my charming personality.”

“Only if you’re offering, Rita dearest.” Mister Springer’s smile gets curly at the edge, and this time Rita actually does shift away from him. He must notice, because it drops off a little bit, like he’s pulling himself back to normal, whatever normal is for him. It’s more of a Mister Glass smile than a Mister Springer smile, but Rita thinks she might like Mister Glass better anyways. “No, I’m referring to the fact that you’re evidently quite the hacker.”

“That?” Rita scoffs. “Anyone can be a good hacker if they try, and I ain’t even that good.”

“Lysithea is one of the biggest prison colonies this side of Pluto,” Mister Springer reminds her. “And their security system is profoundly complicated. You still got in.”

“I’m not getting into Lysithea again, they’ve probably closed up all the holes I crawled through by now. Security folks tend to be paranoid like that.”

“Paranoid indeed.”

Rita sips at the Mai Tai. “Hey, this is pretty good, what’s in it?”

Mister Springer gives her a smile that Rita would place more in the wheelhouse of Mister Rose - gosh, it’s getting hard to keep all these guys straight, maybe she should ask for a single name as payment instead of Mai Tais, although the Mai Tais are pretty good too. “Mostly rum, I believe.”

“I should drink more rum,” Rita says thoughtfully. “What’d you need me to hack into?”

“I just need you to help, ah, liberate a few items from another guest of this resort, by way of unlocking his doors.” Mister Springer produces a tablet out of nowhere and hands it over. Rita takes it and examines it warily. “I know the basics, of course, enough that I’ve found the uplink to the digital lock for his room. But I could use your expertise in surpassing it.”

Rita sets down her drink and gives him her best suspicious look, eyes narrow and lips pursed. “And what exactly am I liberating?”

“Just a couple of artifacts from a gentleman who’s not particularly nice.”

“How not particularly nice?”

“You know Min Kanagawa?”

Rita nearly drops the tablet. “We’re stealing from  _ Min? _ ”

“ _ We’re _ not stealing from anyone,” Mister Springer says, with more finality than Rita expected. It doesn’t sound like Mister Springer - it doesn’t sound like any of the names she’s seen him put on so far. Maybe it’s the truest version of whoever this is. “You’re solving a problem for a friend. And that friend happens to be after Min Kanagawa’s nephew, who might be just as much trouble as her.”

“Hey, you had me at Min.” Rita turns to the tablet and starts typing. “You know, it’s easier to do this with a real computer. Call me old-fashioned if you want, I know plenty of people can hack with just the screen, but me, I always liked feeling the keys under my fingers, you know? Course, Mister Steel can barely type with all his fingers, he thinks I’m a genius for being able to, but he barely understands how comms work. Not that I’m much better, at least with the comms, or with monitors and streams, all that wireless stuff goes-” she swipes a hand back over her hair- “ _ whoosh, _ just right over my head, but gimme a keyboard and I’m good to go.”

She pauses to take a sip of her Mai Tai - gosh, she’s really going to have to find out how to make these - and then keeps typing. “Ma used to say I came outta the womb typing, but me, I think I came out screaming like everyone else and the typing made me stop screaming. Or maybe I just get computers. Coding is all just patterns, you know? It’s like how soap operas, they all use the same stories and hope nobody notices, but I watch enough of ‘em that I always notice, and all the places that lock doors use the same ways to get into those doors.” She hands the tablet back to Mister Springer. “Speaking of, you’re good to go, I added you to the access list but that’s going away in about an hour, so you’d better hop to it.”

Mister Springer looks kind of like someone clocked him in the head, but he takes the tablet anyways. “You are truly one of a kind, Rita darling,” he says.

Rita waves him off. “C’mon, Mister Springer, you don’t need to be fakey with me, my name’s Rita. Just Rita.”

Mister Springer nods and looks down at the tablet. She gets the feeling that he’s mostly just trying not to look at her when he says, almost shyly, “Juno can’t type?”

Rita grins before she can help herself. He’s cute. “The boss is good at a lot of things, but computers ain’t one of them. Why else did you think he kept me around, because I’m so organized? It’s because without me he wouldn’t know how to email clients their invoices.”

Mister Springer laughs, eyes still fixed on the tablet. Rita can see enough of his face to know that he’s tearing up, or maybe trying not to. “He’s… he’s a hell of a lady, isn’t he?”

Rita softens. “He’s something else,” she says softly. Mister Springer doesn’t move, so Rita polishes off her Mai Tai and wonders if maybe it’s in bad form to show up for a first date tipsy. Maybe it doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing she’s learning from Mister Springer, it’s that it’d probably be better to hold on to something that she thinks could be good.

After a minute, Mister Springer slides the tablet back to wherever it came from. Rita watches him roll his shoulders back and lift his chin and suddenly he’s right back in full-on Mister Springer mode, all sharky and sharp and nothing shy about him. “Thank you again for your help, Rita d-” he stops and tilts his head at her. “Rita. I’ll send you another drink.”

“Oh, don’t bother, you can pay me back next time you see me.” Rita pauses and flashes Mister Springer a grin that she hopes is sharky enough for him. “Or you can pay for my dinner tonight, whichever you’d prefer. I’ll be seeing you around, Mister Springer.”

“I do hope so,” Mister Springer says. He sounds like he means it, too.

(Rita was joking about dinner, honest, she was, but after an hour and a half of tapas and nice conversation with the saleslady, a waitress comes over and tells them that their bill has been paid for by a gentleman by the name of Tory Springer, and he left enough extra creds that they can get dessert, if they’d like? And Rita laughs so hard that her date almost looks worried.)

 

#

 

Now, there’s one part to this whole private investigator thing that Rita refuses to get used to. Oh, she can deal with the cranky clients and the mysteries, and the boring work and missing her streams sometimes, and the bombs and getting shot at. She can even handle Mister Steel’s bad days like it’s second nature these days.

No, the part that Rita hates more than anything is that she gets kidnapped from time to time. It’s a risk she doesn’t mind in theory, since this is only the fourth time and that’s not half bad for as long as she’s been doing it - it’s a better track record than Mister Steel, at any rate, and that’s something to be proud of - but being at risk is different than being  _ kidnapped. _

Rita’s never been good at measuring time but she figures they’ve had her for about two days by the time she starts getting bored with the interrogations. They slap her around a bit, sure, kick her in the ribs once, but it’s not the worst she’s had to deal with. She’s not even sure what they’re asking her about, some case that Mister Steel hadn’t told her much about. He said it’d be dangerous for her to know too much about it. Rita’s not one much for irony, but she figures that if this isn’t irony it’s close enough for her to be mad about it anyways.

But the point is, it’s either the end of the second day or the beginning of the third when the door opens into where they’re holding her (warehouse, maybe? old factory? the kind of place that Mister Steel can and probably will kick a few doors down without hurting himself) and one of the masked folks walks in, someone new trailing behind him.

Rita cocks her head at them both, shifting in the chair she’s tied to. “ _ The Martian Prince, _ ” she says, just to watch the masked guy’s jaw clench. “ _ Dana Versus, Part Three _ \- not the best one in the series, but you know, still okay.  _ Dana Versus, Part Four _ \- probably actually the worst one in the series, but-”

“Stop listing movies,” the masked guy growls.

Rita scoffs. “ _ The Martian Prince _ was a TV series. Honestly, mister, you’ve gotta keep up with the times.”

He slaps her. Rita juts her chin out. “I’ve been hit harder than that before.”

“Oh, we’re done hitting you.” The guy points at her. “You, you know something, and this isn’t working, so Kingsley here is gonna get you to talk.” He slaps the new guy on the shoulder.

Rita examines the new guy. He’s real tall, with a big coat and a big hat, face in the shadows. She frowns. “You gonna impress me, Mister Kingsley?”

Mister Kingsley grins. She can’t see anything but the quickest flash of teeth, and she’s afraid for the two seconds before he says, “I hope I will.”

Rita tilts her head and flips through her mental list of movies and soaps. “Huh,” she says, and she smiles, maybe the realest smile since this whole mess started. “How about that? Can’t think of one where this happened.”

“Where what happened?” masked guy demands, before Mister Kingsley shoots him.

“Was that on stun?” Rita asks suspiciously.

Mister Kingsley already has a plasma cutter in his hand, and he’s moving behind her chair. “Do you really care what the answer is?”

“I mean, from a moral perspective, sure, we can’t just go around killing guys.”

“Even guys who hire shady men to torture you?”

“Hey, a fella’s gotta make a living.” The ropes slide to the ground, and Rita turns to look at Mister Kingsley. “What were you doing here anyways? I barely know what these guys were after, something that Mister Steel was looking for but  _ oh _ he’s gonna go nuts when he finds me, or maybe them - anyways, Mister Kingsley, I hope you didn’t have to blow your cover for me-”

Mister Kingsley chuckles, although it’s a little strained by the effort of him pulling Rita up and out of her chair, and if she leans on him real hard then that’s just a side effect of being kidnapped and nothing to do with him being a friendly face. “Certainly not! You were what I was looking for.”

Rita gasps despite herself. It makes her ribs ache but sometimes that’s the price you’ve gotta pay for a good gasp. “Aw, really? Mister Kingsley!”

“Can you walk?”

“Dunno,” Rita says thoughtfully, and takes a step forward. Her legs don’t give out, which has happened to her before and  _ ooh _ that’s no fun to deal with, so she’s a step or two ahead of where she could be. “I think I can, and I think I’d like to get out of here now.” They start hobbling towards the door behind Rita, moving slower than she’d like but still moving. “Mister Kingsley, how’d you hear about this anyways?”

“Oh, I keep up with the chatter,” Mister Kingsley says lightly. “I have a couple of friends who owe me favors who keep an ear out in Hyperion City, all the better to-”

“You’re keeping tabs on Mister Steel,” Rita says, trying to keep all the awe out of her voice. “Gosh, this is just like in  _ The Prince of the Dunes, _ or maybe the end of  _ The Larissa Redemption _ , oh!, or I know-”

“There’s no secretary in the end of  _ The Larissa Redemption, _ ” Mister Kingsley points out.

Rita gasps, a real good one again, and this one throws her into a coughing fit so bad that they have to stop moving. Mister Kingsley says something all nice and concerned that she can’t hear over the sound of her hacking a lung out, but as soon as she catches her breath she beams up at him. “Mister Kingsley,” she says, still a little out of breath, “you’ve been holding out on me!”

“ _ The Larissa Redemption _ is an incredibly popular film, you must know that.”

“Yeah, but think about who I spend most’a my time around. He doesn’t-” Rita coughs, and waves off a worried look. “He’s not one for the popular films.”

They start moving again, a little slower. “Well, at any rate, there was no secretary in  _ The Larissa Redemption, _ and for that matter no thief either. I can’t think of a single stream that has them both.”

Rita smirks up at him. “I think that just means you and me are one of a kind, Mister Kingsley.”

Mister Kingsley smiles at her. “Didn’t we both know that already, Rita?”

Rita opens her mouth to say something cutesy and clever, but she hears the shouting before she has the chance. It looks like she was right about being in an old factory, maybe, because the yelling is echoing so badly that she can’t tell which way it’s is coming from. Mister Kingsley tugs her closer towards him and maybe a little behind, like he’s trying to protect her, which would be real sweet if she hadn’t already been kidnapped. As it is, she thinks she might just be pissed off enough that she could fight her way out of here herself, so long as she doesn’t have another coughing fit.

“Rita,” Mister Kingsley says, voice low, but then there’s the sound of gunfire and more shouting. He squeezes her even tighter, but Rita frowns, because there’s only one reason she can think of someone breaking into an abandoned factory to start a gunfight, and she thinks she might know the lady who would do it, too. Maybe that’s why Mister Kingsley is holding her so tight. He might need something to keep him steady.

From somewhere else in the factory, footsteps are pounding, and she hears “-ita, Rita!” and she knows. She knew he’d come for her.

“Mister Kingsley,” Rita says, surprised by how steady her voice is, “if you need to go so you don’t have to see Mister Steel, that’s fine, you know that? I won’t even tell him you were here if you don’t want me to.”

Mister Kingsley takes a deep breath. Rita can feel it in his chest, the way it swells up, like he’s hoping it’ll pop him like a balloon. “No, Rita, I think it’s time I saw him again,” he says. He doesn’t sound as sure as he could, but Rita figures it’d be hard to be sure about this.

She nods and takes the deepest breath she can manage, then pitches forward. “We’re here, Mister Steel!” she shouts as loud as she can manage, and then immediately launches into even more coughing. Maybe she should ask Mister Steel to take her to a hospital - not that he wouldn’t have done it anyways, just on principle, but maybe he’d take her to a nicer one if she asked him.

The footsteps get louder, and so do the gunshots. Rita looks up one more time. “Mister Kingsley-”

“Rita.” He meets her eyes, doesn’t say anything else, and Rita huffs out a little breath, turns to back just in time to see Mister Steel run around a corner and skid to a stop, and everything in the room seems to freeze. She can see him look at her, and then at Mister Kingsley. She can see the exact moment he realizes what’s going on.

And then Rita decides, hell with it, she’s had a worse day than Mister Steel is having and he’s just going to have to live with that for once, so she unlatches her arm from Mister Kingsley’s shoulders and says, voice wavering, “Mister Steel?”

Mister Steel looks back at her, and she can almost see him snap back into himself. “Rita,” he says, in this awful ripped-up voice, one that she’s only heard a couple of times, one that she’s never heard her name said in and she hopes she never does again. It’s almost enough to make her knees buckle as she takes her first step towards him, and then another. Mister Steel makes a choked-out noise. “Oh my god,  _ Rita- _ ”

“Mister Steel,” Rita sobs, and she nearly trips over her own feet but he catches her and tugs her close against his chest, he has his arms around her shoulders and he’s not a hugger but right now he’s squeezing her like he’s afraid she’s going to vanish again. “Aw, boss, no, I’m right here, I’m-” she coughs, can’t help it, and Mister Steel’s grip loosens, probably to let her breathe, but she doesn’t let go of him. “I’m  _ right here, _ boss.”

“We’re getting you a tracker,” Mister Steel says, like he does every time she gets kidnapped. Rita nods and buries her nose in his jacket, and he doesn’t even complain. “Two trackers, in case they find the first one.”

“Whatever you say, Mister Steel,” Rita says, muffled by her face in the fabric. Scared has never been a good look on him, and she’d rather have him back to normal, and if that means pretending everything’s normal then she can do that. “Can… can we go home now?”

“Of course we can,” Mister Steel says instantly. He pulls away and slides one of Rita’s arms around his shoulders. “Do you need me to carry you?”

Rita shakes her head. “Oh, no you don’t, I’m walking out of here on my own two feet.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mister Steel says. Rita has just a second to wonder what he’s waiting for before he says, casual as can be, “You coming?”

“Of course,” Mister Kingsley says, something too complicated tangled up in his voice for Rita to even begin to understand. A second later his hand is at the small of Rita’s back, a good few inches below where Mister Steel’s hand is but just as sturdy. “Let’s go.”

 

#

 

They’re perfectly civil to one another the entire time Rita’s in the hospital - probably specifically because Rita’s in the hospital, and as much as they probably want a shouting match, they want to make sure she’s okay. It’d be real sweet if it weren’t the worst thing in the world to be in a room with the both of them, Mister Steel trying to act like nothing’s broken and Mister Kingsley acting like there’s nothing there to break.

The hospital lets Rita go the next day, and the lady and gentleman even stay civil all day long. Mister Kingsley gets Rita groceries and cooks dinner, and Mister Steel sits and watches movies with her and even asks questions about what’s going on and what story it reminds her of. Rita would feel patronized if she had it in her, but apparently kidnapping takes a lot out of her, because she’s just happy that they’re both there.

And dinner is fine - Mister Kingsley is a better cook than Rita, and by extension way better than Mister Steel - and Rita dozes off on the couch and they both let her. Which is really their mistake, and hers, too, because she wakes up when the fighting starts.

The thing that wakes Rita up is the sound of a glass hitting the counter, followed by Mister Kingsley saying in a low, steady voice, “I understand that you wanted to stay here, I  _ always _ understood that.”

“Then we don’t have a problem,” Mister Steel says, sounding a little hysterical. “We don’t have to talk about-”

“About you leaving?”

“You said you understood!”

“You didn’t even say  _ goodbye. _ ” Rita dares to open one eye; they’re both standing in Rita’s kitchen, on opposite sides but angled towards each other. Mister Kingsley looks sadder than Rita’s ever seen anyone look. “That’s all I wanted from you, a goodbye, an ending, and instead I got nothing, Juno, nothing at all.”

“And-” Mister Steel takes a deep, raggedy breath, shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry.” Mister Kingsley looks away, back towards the wall, and Mister Steel lifts a hand like he could reach him, like he wants to try. “Nureyev, I am, I’m  _ sorry, _ it wasn’t fair to you.”

“No,” Mister Kingsley - Mister Nureyev maybe - agrees, “it wasn’t.”

Mister Steel takes a step forward, and Rita holds her breath. “You deserve better than me, Nureyev. You always did.”

“I don’t think it’s for you to decide what I deserve, Detective,” Mister Kingsley grits out.

“But you do,” Mister Steel says, with this awful kind of earnestness that he only ever has when he’s convinced that he’s useless. “You deserve someone who can stay with you, and I can’t be that for you.”

“Then don’t,” Mister Kingsley says, and turns back, looking desperate. “I won’t ask you to, Juno, I’ll never ask you to leave again.”

Mister Steel stares at him, throat working like he’s trying to swallow something thick. “And what if I’m asking you to leave?”

Mister Kingsley’s mouth opens, just slightly, and he looks away, except this time he doesn’t look towards the wall, he looks towards Rita. Directly at Rita. And she can tell the exact moment he realizes she’s listening, because he sighs. “Rita.”

“If you didn’t want me to listen, you should’ve gone in the hall,” Rita says primly, and wriggles around so she’s sitting upright to glare at the both of them over the back of her couch.

Mister Steel pinches the bridge of his nose. “Rita, goddammit, it’s none of your business-”

“None of my business?” Rita repeats hysterically. “Mister Steel, you were gone for weeks! You went away, you called me telling me to sell your things, and you came back missing an eye, and you think it’s not my  _ business _ what you did? It’s always been my business, whether you wanna share it with me or not!”

Mister Steel’s jaw twitches. “Rita, this job is dangerous, I don’t want you any more involved than you have to be-”

“Involved?” Rita shrieks. “Mister Steel, I got  _ kidnapped! _ And it ain’t your fault and it ain’t mine, but it’s not up to you to decide how involved I get to be in my own job! I’m doing this because I want to be here, and you don’t get to tell me what I want, because I like what I do, and I like you an awful lot too, and you’re not gonna change that by wishing me away! And I think he-” Rita points for effect- “Mister Kingsley or Nureyev or Mneston, or whichever it really is, I think he wants to be here too, and you don’t get to pick what’s good for other people, boss. You don’t. If it hurts us it’s because of what we did, not because you couldn’t stop it, okay?”

“When did you get so smart?” Mister Steel says, looking a little dazed.

Rita smiles. “I’ve always been smart, boss, you just forget to notice it sometimes.”

Mister Steel starts to nod but then stops himself, looking suspicious. “Hang on, did you say Mneston? I haven’t heard that name before.”

Rita lifts her chin. “I’ve run into Mister Whichever a few times without you. He’s a perfectly nice gentleman, you know. Except-” she rounds on him, and she can see his face drop as he realizes she’s coming for him next- “Mister Whichever, and I really don’t care which name but I’d prefer if I only had to remember one, you need to either leave or stay.”

Mister Whichever blinks. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“You said you’re keeping an eye on Mister Steel, and that’s really sweet, except for the part where he left and then it’s not your place to keep an eye on him anymore. You’ve gotta listen to Mister Steel and leave if he says leave.” Rita tilts her head. “Or maybe show him that you really wanna stay.”

Mister Whichever nods slowly and glances at Mister Steel. “Juno, dear, I know you’re not one for gestures, but I’d like to make one now.”

“Yeah?” Mister Steel folds his arms across his chest, looking small. “What’s that?”

And Mister Whichever turns on his heel and strides over towards Rita, still sitting on the couch, and sticks his hand out. “Rita, my name is Peter Nureyev,” he says, and then smiles like he actually means it.

Rita shakes his hand without hesitation. “It’s a real pleasure, Mister Nureyev. I’m happy to meet you after all this time.”

“And you, Rita.”

Rita looks back at Mister Steel, who’s staring like he’s been punched, like he can’t look away. “It’s okay to have nice things, boss,” she says quietly. “We love you already. You just gotta let us.”

Mister Steel takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Rita,” he says, quite but still real genuine, and then he looks at Mister Nureyev, who’s already looking at him expectantly. “Nureyev, what do you say we get out of here and let the lady rest? We can talk back at my place.”

Mister Nureyev smiles. “I think I’d like that,” he says. “Rita, it’s truly been a pleasure. I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“I do too, Mister Nureyev,” Rita admits. “Mister Steel, you gonna come say goodbye?”

“I don’t think you’d let me leave without it,” Mister Steel says, but he comes over and leans down and kisses Rita’s forehead, the way he’s done a few times, only when he’s real happy with her. “You need anything, you call me, okay? Right away.”

Rita waves him off. “I’m going right back to sleep, boss, don’t worry about me. Worry about you for once.”

“I’m working on it,” Mister Steel says, and turns to look at Mister Nureyev. And sometimes, sometimes life is like the streams, not a specific one but all of them, and the way Mister Steel is looking at Mister Nureyev is something out of every stream Rita’s ever seen. Like he’s looking at the world. “You ready, Nureyev?”

“Always,” Mister Nureyev says.

Rita settles back in on the couch and finds her remote. She doesn’t watch them leave. She doesn’t need to. All she needs is to be by herself, knowing that they’re going to be okay, and lucky for her, she’s pretty sure by now that all of them are going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

>  **detailed content warning:** in the fifth segment of this fic Rita is kidnapped and interrogated. it's implied that her kidnappers hit her, and that they hire a man to interrogate her by way of torture; that man, Mister Kingsley, turns out to be Nureyev.
> 
> thank you guys so very much for reading - if you enjoyed the fic feel free to drop me a line, i'm @waveridden on both [tumblr](http://waveridden.tumblr.com) and [twitter!](http://twitter.com/waveridden)


End file.
